• Why do black people riot?
• Is it true you all hate homosexuals?
• What do you have against hockey?
• Et cetera, et cetera.
But with so many competitive news outlets and so many questions, this is not logistically possible. Every network wants its own black spokesperson, and the Reverends Jesse and Al can only cover so much ground.
In this chapter, I will teach you how to take advantage of the booming black spokesperson market and provide a valuable service to the nation’s clueless media outlets. Here is a list of what you’ll need to be successful:
Part 1—Appearance
Be male
Overlooking the contributions and perspectives of black women is essential to the media narrative of the black experience. For women who are serious about pursuing this line of work, focus on identifying an appropriate black male to represent you to the media.
Have slogans
Make sure they rhyme. What do Jesse Jackson and R. Kelly have in common? They are both powerful black spokesmen, and they rhyme. Never underestimate the media’s hunger for a rhyming Negro.
Speak clearly
However, don’t enunciate too well. Try not to say “however,” for example. Perfect diction may undermine your black cred. The media will only accept a handful of black spokespeople who sound like they went to the same schools as them.
Don’t be too young or too old
The ideal black spokesperson is thirty-five to sixty years old. Toward the younger end, they are looking for the voice of the next generation. On the older end, it’s about getting the perspective of civil rights veterans. Once you get too far above sixty, however, you don’t play as well for the camera, and you start sounding crazy (see: Bill Cosby).
Wear a suit
Always wear a suit. The media absolutely loves a black man in a suit. It says you mean business. A confusing racial situation can break out at any moment, and you never know when you might get the call, so wear one constantly whether sleeping, jogging, or mowing your lawn. In an emergency, say the complete flooding and near-destruction of a major American city, a tracksuit can be substituted, but only in an emergency.
Part 2—The Black Résumé
For television appearances, the producer or host must be able to cite you as someone deeply in touch with the black experience. Below, we offer a multiple-choice, credibility-establishing résumé template to get you started.
Please select one option from each of the following experience areas:
Founded:
1. The National Coalition for Operation
2. Operation: National Coalition
3. The Coalition for National Operation
Led protests following:
1. The brutal police shooting of an unarmed black man
2. Any black person’s allegations of racial violence by whites
3. The release of yet another Tyler Perry movie
Is a longtime civil rights activist who:
1. Marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
2. Saw Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. marching on television
3. Bought chips at a corner store on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in a major U.S. city
So, if your name is “Joe Smith,” your television intro would go something like this.
To help us understand the situation, we’d like to go to Joe Smith. Joe, of course, is the founder of Operation: National Coalition, once saw Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. marching on television, and led protests following the release of the movie Madea’s Family Reunion. Thanks for joining us, Joe . . .
Part 3—Black Issues
There are two types of issues: those that have to do with black people and everything else. You must be prepared to comment on both. The following is a media-approved list of official black issues:
• Crime. Why do black people do so much?
• Affirmative action. Why do black people take jobs from white people?
• Poverty. Why are black people poor?
• Racism. Why haven’t black people gotten over it already?
• Drugs. Why do black people do them?
• Sunflower seeds. Why do black people love them?
• Welfare. Why are black people on it?
• Hip-hop. Why can’t black people just let us have it already? Come on! Gimme!
• The Black Vote. Who are all the black people voting for?
• Obama. Do you still like him?
Because all black people also double as black issues, be prepared to discuss any prominent black figure, including:
• Oprah. What is she doing right now?
• Kanye West. Why is he so rude?
• Michelle Obama. She can dance!
• Bill Cosby. Why is he so angry?
• Louis Farrakhan. He’s still your official leader, right? Defend his latest extreme statement.
• LeBron James. Why, God, why???
• Any other black person, dead or alive.
You might wonder if it’s your role to talk about issues that have no connection to race or blackness, but if you’re going to be an effective spokesperson for Black America, it’s up to you to create that connection. If you find yourself in the media spotlight, being asked about nuclear proliferation or Riverdance, don’t panic. You got this. Just remember your training. Invoke your résumé, adjust your suit, and bring it back to blackness. Your career depends on it.
Part 4—Getting Media to Notice You
As with money, it takes media coverage to get media coverage. To get on TV you need to have been on TV. Confused? Pay attention. You have three key tasks.
1. Be ready for the media
In today’s 24/7, always-connected society, a celebrity could say something about your people or urban police could torture a black man at any moment. In fact, while you’re studying this guide, something very black is going down, and you’re missing it. You are off to a terrible start.
2. Monitor your world for any opportunity to speak blackly
Reading newspapers is optional. Watching television is critical, especially cable news. Listening to talk radio is nice, but reading blogs is better. The beauty of the Internet is that you don’t have to wait for a racially tense incident to happen. You just have to search for one. YouTube is essentially a racism-on-demand video service available, free of charge, at any hour of the day. When you find an opportunity, ask yourself, which black issue is at stake? If none, which one can be injected? Also, are you wearing your suit?
3. Build your own media presence
The first opportunity you find to test your spokesperson skills may not generate the major media coverage it deserves. You need to start by generating your own. Here are some ideas:
• Start a newsletter. The name of it is not important, but the motto should be “Voice of the People.”
• Get a radio show. The fact that you have a show is all that matters. What you say and whether or not it’s true is unimportant, so long as you keep talking!
• Blog! All the time! You should post at least twelve times a day. It does not matter what you blog about. Trust me.
• Have several people follow you around with a camera. Occasionally stop in front of government buildings and issue statements. Again, what you say is not important, only that you capture it on camera.
Part 5—Hating on Other Black People
A big part of your job as Spokesperson for Black America may be to hate on other black people, especially those who pose a threat to your standing. I recommend the following tactics:
• Challenge their blackness and claim they are out of touch, especially by asserting that a white person is blacker than they are.
• Accuse them of being racist and acting against the interests of black people.
• Spread one of their controversial, out-of-context sound bites that makes it sound like they said something exactly the opposite of what you know they said.*
Bonus—The Alternative Conservativ
e Path
Let’s face it. By following my advice, you will become a spokesperson for Black America, but you’ll make it by playing the traditional role of aggrieved liberal Negro expected by the media. What I’ve shown above works, but it’s also uninspired and unoriginal. If you are serious about making a mark, and money, then consider playing the part of Conservative Black Spokesperson.
The key to success as a Conservative Black Spokesperson is to take the “Hating on Other Black People” section on the previous page and build your entire strategy on that one element.
Your explanation for every media-approved black issue is quite simple. You just blame black pathology. For example, while it may be true that substance abuse occurs at a lower rate among young blacks than whites but rises to outweigh whites later in life,* there is no market for that kind of fact-based commentary, and you will quickly find yourself out of a job if you insist on repeating such nonsense. Your job is to blame Black America for the drug problem, crime, homelessness, unemployment, the price of oil, and the budget deficit. Most important, you must attribute such negative behaviors to an innate dysfunction within the black psyche.
If you’re asked to comment on a black public figure, don’t hesitate to extrapolate his or her negative behavior to the entire black population. If a black professional athlete severely injures a club-goer, it’s just another example of the hyperviolent nature of black men. You should use this case as a launching point to criticize single-parent households and more black pathology.
You cannot overexploit these opportunities. It’s simply not possible.
If you find yourself running out of ways to blame black people, use any of the following tactics to distract your host:
• Invoke the success of minority immigrants who came here voluntarily.
• Cite the number of decades since the end of slavery.
• Blame hip-hop.
• Point to the example of Barack Obama.
• Blame hip-hop again.
This technique works whether for anti–affirmative action crusaders of the 1990s or black Tea Party members of the 2010s. Whichever black spokesperson path you choose, conservative or traditional, take pride in the fact that both can be equally unhelpful to your people.
Beyond the Media
In all likelihood, you won’t be called to perform such a high-profile task as representing all black people in the media, but you can still use this training in your everyday life. Scale the lessons down. Most of them still apply to smaller contexts, like drinks with coworkers or hanging out with non-black friends. Inevitably, someone in this group will ask you, “Dayshawn”—your name is Dayshawn to these people—“what do you think about [black issue x]?” Know that by “you” they mean “all black people everywhere,” and answer appropriately.
Your answer may not be broadcast live on cable news, but it is no less important. You never know who among your non-black friends and colleagues will end up writing black characters for a TV show or movie, so answer carefully! The fate of the race depends on you.
(See the chapters “How to Be The Black Friend” and “How to Be The Black Employee” to further sharpen your skills as racial representative.)
Have You Ever Wanted to Not Be Black?
Speaking on behalf of black people, being The Black Friend, understanding your place on the scales of blackness—all this can be quite exhausting. Sometimes, and for any number of reasons, you don’t want to be black anymore, even if just for a moment.
There can be a certain mental overhead that accompanies being black, and it isn’t always welcome. When I asked The Black Panel about this phenomenon, most admitted to, at one point or another, wanting to distance themselves from or even renounce their membership in Team Black America.
DAMALI AYO
I had a little bit of a “want to be Korean” phase in college. I straightened my hair, I was dying it black,* hanging out with Koreans. That lasted for a couple of months.
CHERYL CONTEE
In terms of “Are there times when I have wished that I wasn’t black?” no, there aren’t times. Certainly I’ve experienced real discrimination in my life, discrimination that has impacted my career and my social life, and that has been painful.
There’s a young man who basically told me he wasn’t going to marry me because his family said, “Just don’t marry a nigger.” That was really painful to live through, like a hundred times more painful, dehumanizing, humiliating than it sounds, but I didn’t wish that I wasn’t black when that happened, or when I found out that I was getting paid less, like $20,000 less, than a white guy who was reporting to me.
It didn’t make me wish that I wasn’t black. It just made me really angry and frustrated at the inequities and even more committed to making sure that that part of my work and that part of my life is designed to remove those inequities, because they impact everyone.
I’ve never wished that I wasn’t black. I have wished that people were more insightful. I have wished that people were more compassionate. I’ve wished that other people could see me for the complex being that I am, not see past my race but see that and all of the things that I have done, to embrace all of me.
Okay, so maybe Cheryl is stronger than some of us. Meanwhile, my stand-up comic panelists both acknowledged that in their younger years, they contended with Denial of Blackness attacks but have since strongly embraced race as part of their identities:
W. KAMAU BELL
I think I spent the first seventeen years of my life probably not wanting to be black half the time, at least. It seemed hard from the perspective of being one of the few black kids in the private school. Then it seemed hard from the perspective of when I was around black people: they could smell that I hadn’t been around black people.
And so I spent a lot of time not wanting to be black, just because it was like, “This is too much pressure from both sides.”
It wasn’t until probably I turned eighteen, I read The Autobiography of Malcolm X. I started listening to the bands Living Color and Fishbone. And I found that, “Oh, there’s different ways to be black? Oh, wait a minute. Oh, okay. I like these ways. Wait a minute, John Coltrane? I like these ways.” And I started to assemble my own version of blackness.
In my mind, I picture a nineteen-year-old Kamau at a special Toy Shoppe for Self-Determination. He browses the aisles and happens upon the object of his search: a very-special-edition LEGO™ Negro Identity Building Set. It comes with pieces of various shapes and sizes, and on the side of the box is printed:
Build the black identity that works for you! Tired of being pressured by black people and others to fit their idea of blackness? Don’t wear the “right” clothes? Don’t listen to the “right” music? Don’t commit the “right” crimes? This set will liberate you. Inside you’ll find every country, every type of food, every genre of film, all granting you the unlimited power to be whoever you want to be while maintaining your strong sense of blackness.
ELON JAMES WHITE
When I was growing up I totally knew that it would be an easier world if I was white because then I wouldn’t be yelled at by my uncle and my mother when we were in arguments about race.
I will fully admit that I didn’t have the clear, strong feeling that I’m supposed to be black probably until the last couple of years when I realized that this time in history, what I do, the discussions I have, everything that I really find important is based on the idea that I feel that a people has been mistreated. And that even now, after all of the bullshit that happened, we’re in this weird line of things where it’s like well, we’re not slaves, but we’re not equal.
So I feel like I am supposed to be black now, and I would never want to change it now only because, as a random white guy, especially if I was a stand-up or something like that, I don’t feel I could do as much good as being a black guy in this time making the arguments that I make.
Many black people reach a point of tension with their own black community when that com
munity rejects their membership in Club Blackness and forces that person to make The Choice, as in the Questionably Black Person must choose either to continue the unauthorized activity or continue being black. This usually revolves around an activity that doesn’t fit the community’s cultural definition of blackness. Sometimes, sadly, it’s achievement-based, such as an academic or extracurricular organization. Other times it’s athletic, and can include a decision to pick a “non-black” sport over a “black” sport. Often it has nothing to do with what one does but rather with whom one is doing it.
JACQUETTA SZATHMARI
I had a best friend, Amanda Fry. She was white, and at a certain point when we were in third or fourth grade some black girls were like, “You have to choose between being friends with this white girl,” who’s my best friend since we were four and a half or five years old, “or all black people.”
I was like, “Well, sorry, all black people. You lose out because this is my friend. I’m just going to be black on my own. I don’t have time for that.”
Those kinds of situations, over time, crop up in more subtle ways as you get older, of people trying to force you to make a choice. But it’s a false dichotomy. You can never choose or not choose to be black. It’s impossible. It’s like choosing to be five foot one or not be five foot one.
How to Be Black Page 7
